Under the Needle: Law is on the landlord's side

Updated 10:00 pm, Friday, November 21, 2008

Deb Manuma looks over house listings as she deals with being evicted from her Beacon Hill home due to her landlord's foreclosure.

Deb Manuma looks over house listings as she deals with being evicted from her Beacon Hill home due to her landlord's foreclosure.

Photo: Mike Kane/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Under the Needle: Law is on the landlord's side

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When the situation changed, when it got truly worrisome, was after the second letter, not the first. The property manager explained away the initial notice in a manner that people with few options always want to believe.

The Beacon Hill house where Deb Manuma lived and paid rent for six years with her daughter, nieces and sister had entered foreclosure, the letter said.

Specifically, the document noted that Remigio Balingit, who owned the house, soon wouldn't if he didn't pay $10,772.

So Manuma called Mel Mercado, the man she understands to be Balingit's nephew and property manager. Nothing to worry about, Mercado said. The owner, he asserted, had been out of the country, wires got crossed, etc. The situation had been cleared up, he said, and Manuma's lease remained binding.

Still worried about shelter for her family, Manuma, 49, asked for documentation to back up his claim. He agreed and sent her a note on American Eagle Properties letterhead. The April 2, 2008, note assured her the problems had been solved, and it added:

"They (Manuma and her family) have been our tenant since March 2007, shown to be responsible and monthly rents were paid every first day of the month. There has been no complaint from neighbors and they have kept their unit and surrounding area clean. There has never been any major complaint or unnecessary demands from the resident."

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This note seemed odd as it appeared to address the concerns of a subsequent owner. But it eased Manuma's worry.

She has below-average credit but an excellent history of paying rent on time, according to the current and former landlord who owned the home prior to 2005. An affordable rental house for five is hard to find, especially so with bad credit. Relieved, she continued to send a monthly $1,700 payment to Balingit or Mercado.

Weeks later, the second letter arrived, the one that changed everything. This time it came by a process server. It informed her of her pending eviction. It made it clear that while Balingit had been happy to pocket her monthly check, he'd not been making house payments.

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This was September. She tried to reach Mercado on the phone. She's still trying.

"He stopped returning my calls, that was awhile ago," Manuma said, boxes piled around her house, ready for a move but with no place to go. "We've tried to find a way to stay, to maybe even buy the house, but we can't get financing. Because of the credit problems, we can't find another place to rent to us -- even though we've always paid rent on time."

And what about her lease? Turns out under Washington law, it is only binding on a new owner when a property is bought, not when a bank or mortgage company forecloses. Then it's void.

Worse still, because Saxon Mortgage Services Inc. and its lawyers from the Bellevue offices of Routh Crabtree Olsen went straight to court to throw her out, Manuma likely will have an eviction on her court record even though -- according to her landlords -- she's a great tenant who paid rent on time for the past six years.

None of that matters, said Merf Ehman, a tenant's rights attorney. The law is on the side of the mortgage company. "Manuma doesn't have much recourse."

So to recap: It's deadbeat landlord (gone after pocketing thousands in rent) and Saxon (dealer in more than $6 billion in mortgages) and Routh Crabtree (which lists at least 25 lawyers across three states) against Manuma (total assets: under $5,000).

This isn't her story alone. Rental foreclosures are soaring in Seattle. The Tenants Union, Solid Ground and Columbia Legal Services all have seen a jump in the number of reliable tenants evicted when a landlord defaults on a property and voids a lease. In some cases, landlords already had entered foreclosure before signing the lease and collecting rent.

"There's been a huge jump in this type of call," said Michele Thomas, a Tenants Union community organizer.

Oddly, the state has more laws protecting defaulting landlords than their tenants.

None of which is Manuma's immediate concern. That concern is shelter. The most recent house she thought she landed two days ago fell through -- after the owner spent the night "praying" on Manuma's application only to find the divine inspiration to reject her.

Manuma and her family are on borrowed time. She said the real estate broker for the property has communicated with Saxon and Routh Crabtree to buy her more time.

She's already two weeks beyond the official move-out date. She'd hoped to find a house before now and she's looking at yet another on Sunday.

"The eviction is no fault of ours," she said, while poring over Craigslist.org. "It seems someone should be accountable. I don't know what we'll do."